Welcome To Artwork Corner, where every month I am going to help you with your artwork issues. Gear up for a little Design 101. In this blog, we’ll tackle colour theory basics that every design enthusiast should know.
1. How To Use The Colour Wheel
Like trigonometry, the colour wheel is probably one of those things that you learned about as a young child and haven’t thought of since. However, to really understand Colour, you may have to dust off some of that knowledge. Simply put, the colour wheel provides a visual representation of which colours blend nicely together.
2. What Are The Basic Colours
Here’s how things break down:
Primary Colours: Red, blue, and yellow. Cannot be made from mixing other colours.
Secondary Colours: Orange, Purple, and Green. Can be made by mixing the primary colours together.
Tertiary Colours: The six shades that can be made from mixing primary and secondary colours.
3. Changing Colours With Neutrals:
Once you’ve selected a basic colour, it’s easy to create many different versions within the same family. All you need to do is combine that colour with a neutral in order to make it lighter or darker. This is known as tint, shade, and tone.
Tint: The act of lighting a colour by adding white to it.
Shade: The act of darkening a colour by adding black.
Tone: Slightly darkening a colour by adding grey.
Many artists recommend experimenting with colour by mixing inks until you have a feel for how drastically neutrals will affect a colour. Or look at a Pantone book.
4. Understanding Colour Temperature
You may have heard colours described as having a temperature. These temperatures also describe where the colour falls on the Colour wheel. Reds, oranges, and yellows are often described as warm colours. They are typically more vibrant and seem to bring a sense of liveliness and intimacy to a design. In contrast, blues, purples, and most greens are the cool colours. They can be used to calm down a design and bring a relaxed feel. When choosing colour temperature for a design, you should consider the emotion the design is trying to evoke.
5. Complementary Colour Scheme
When it comes to colour schemes, complimentary is the simplest. It uses two colours that sit opposite each other on the Colour wheel. Typically one colour acts as the dominant shade and the other as an accent. This means combinations like red and green, blue and orange, or yellow and purple. This colour combo is extremely high contrast, which means that it’s best used in small doses and when you want to draw attention to a particular design element.
6. Split-Complementary Colour Scheme
If you like the idea of a complimentary colour scheme, but are afraid it may be a little too bold for your tastes, split complimentary is a safer choice. To make this colour scheme, you would first choose your base shade. Then, instead of choosing the colour directly opposite of your base, you chose the two shades on either side of the opposite colour. Those two shades will provide a much needed sense of balance to the design. You’ll still get the visual impact of bold colour, but you’ll be able to incorporate more of it.
7. Analogous Colour Scheme
The analogous colour scheme refers to using three colours in a row on the colour wheel. Typically, two colours will be either primary colours with the third shade being a mix of the two and a secondary colour. For example, you could choose red, orange, and yellow or red, purple, and blue. The key to using this colour scheme successfully is proportion. Again, the 60-30-10 Rule comes into play. You’ll want to choose one colour to be the dominant shade, one to support the dominant, and the third, most vibrant colour as an accent. Interestingly, you can also create a similar colour scheme using neutrals. It’s typically referred to as a monochromatic colour scheme. Simply choose black, white, and grey in lieu of brighter shades.
8. Triadic Colour Scheme
Triadic colour schemes, sometimes also referred to as a triad, refers to using three colours with equal space between them on the colour wheel. The three primary colours (red, blue, and yellow) are a perfect example, as are the three secondary colours. This type of colour arrangement is often extremely bold. Since the colours are in such high contrast and pure hues are often used, you’ll most often see this scheme in children’s designs.
9. Tetradic Colour Scheme
After the triadic scheme, things get a little more complicated. We’re moving on to balancing four colours in the design. The tetradic scheme, also sometimes referred to as a rectangle scheme because of the shape it makes on the colour wheel, focuses on using two distinct pairs of complimentary colours. In this scheme, colour temperature plays a very important role. Try to make sure that you choose two warm colours and two cool colours to fill the design rather than an odd number. Using an even amount of both will help bring balance to the design.
10. Square Colour scheme
The square colour scheme is very similar to rectangular in both number and name. It uses four shades, but instead of focusing on opposing pairs, the colours are evenly spaced throughout the colour wheel. No matter which colours you choose, this scheme will be comprised of one primary, one secondary and two tertiary colours. Vary the intensity of the four colours by making two shades more neutral and two a little bolder. Again, similarly to the tetradic scheme, you’ll want to pay attention to achieving an equal number of warm and cool colours. But, rather than giving equal attention to both colour pairs, you should pick one shade to dominate the space and use the other three as accents.
Be bold, be brave, but most of all be Colourful. Have fun.
Until next month.
LibertyLettersbySanchi 